I am going to be building a mini Gaming PC with an i3-8350K and GTX 1070 Ti all wrapped up in a Silverstone ML08B case. In order to save a few quid, I have found an old SFX (Not sure if it's THAT old) power supply from Silverstone rated for 300W and Bronze 80PLUS laying around in my house. I wanted to know if this is sufficient for powering a 1070 Ti with a mild OC maybe and a mildly overclocked 8350K? (4.4GHz?)

Couple more things, I plan to use an 6-pin PCIe Power -> 8-pin because this PSU only has a single 6-pin PCIE power connector :/ Just wanted to ask if this is Okay for use with a 1070 Ti with mild OC (maybe). I mean it won't burn out the connector or PSU will it?

Also would this same PSU be okay for use with an 8600K or 8700K in the future (I plan to replace the 8350K at some point).

I think you should spend on a higher quality PSU. Although technically your build may work with 300W, you will strain it to the max. You may also go over the max power of a given rail, since 300W total does NOT necessarily mean 300W for the 12V MB and GPU rail. If the 6-pin (75W) PCIe connector is an indication, transforming this to 8-pin (150W) may or may not be a wise decision. Just because it fits, physically, doesn't mean it can provide this electrical output.

For example, in Techreport's review of the 1070Ti the power consumption in a specific game would reach 250W without any overclocking (http://techreport.com/review/32766/nvid ... eviewed/13). Other sites, using slightly different configurations and games have shown system load at 300+ W. Again, without overclocking, which increases consumption much more than linearly (actually, I believe it's slightly more than quadratically, if you increase voltage).

My recommendation would be to go for a 500W+ PSU, preferably one from a top-tier vendor (Corsair, Seasonic etc). The Seasonic Focus Plus Gold ($79) or Platinum ($99) are good choices, for example. Most PSUs have optimal efficiency at the 20-80% range, so running at 50% would be great for the longevity of your build and for the quality of the electrical output (noise, ripple, heat etc).

Alright, it's probably a good idea I get a bigger PSU then. I know you said 500W+ but would 450W be okay? How about this one? They also do a 600W one but my budget is already stretched quite far for the 1070 Ti :/

That 300W PSU is going to be marginal at best for a system with a 1070 Ti. The Tech Report review shows system power draw at around 250W under load, which is getting up there. And in this review at Anandtech, system power draw in their tests is right around 300W. Running a PSU at full load all the time is not good.

Get a reputable brand PSU that's rated for at least 450W to give yourself some headroom.

If you find yourself needing to use splitters/adapters for the GPU power connections, that's a sign that the PSU maker probably didn't expect the unit to be used with GPUs that need that much power...

By the way I think I can probably stretch to a GTX 1080, as a side question.. the model of 1080 I want is £61 more expensive than the model of 1070 Ti I was going to get. I think I would also get Destiny 2 Free with the 1080 but not the 1070 Ti. What do you think, is it worth it? Since I'll probably not play Destiny 2 that much. Also looking at TR review of 1070 Ti it's quite close to 1080. I will be gaming at 1440p 60 Hz, in titles like Warframe, PlanetSide 2, Dying Light, Fallout 4, GTA5, and I also need to finish Wolfenstein 2.

I can confirm that an Antec 80+ bronze 350W PSU is insufficient to run a 95W CPU and 160W graphics card. Once you add in fans and drives, and consider the potential peak power draws rather than the average TDPs combined, you're probably looking at a 450W minimum but I'd step up to 550 or 600W+ just so that it's not running anwhere near its maximum output.

As a rule of thumb, add your CPU and GPU TDPs together and double it, so in your case that number is 550W. For the ML08 you might want to get a silverstone SFX PSU with the short cable kit.

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I presume TechReport's power consumption figures are at the wall, so it'll be 230W being pulled from the power supply. That's a good 30% margin, and those figures are with a much more power hungry CPU. An 8700k pulls around 55-60W more at stock speeds than a 8350k.

The adapter is much more dodgy though, you're connecting a potential 150W draw to a connector designed for 75W.

I presume TechReport's power consumption figures are at the wall, so it'll be 230W being pulled from the power supply. That's a good 30% margin, and those figures are with a much more power hungry CPU. An 8700k pulls around 55-60W more at stock speeds than a 8350k.

Since it's an older PSU it may not be able to push the full wattage on the 12V rail though.

EndlessWaves wrote:

The adapter is much more dodgy though, you're connecting a potential 150W draw to a connector designed for 75W.

Yup. Even if the PSU is up to the task, this could eventually result in failure of the connector itself. Exceeding the connector's specs causes heat, heat causes oxidation, oxidation increases resistance, resistance causes the VRM on the card to pull more current to make up for the voltage drop caused by the resistance (leading to even more heating), lather, rinse, repeat, BOOM!

Hmmm....how about getting the 1070 Ti 'cause it's not much below a 1080 in performance, use the savings from not getting a 1080 to get a really robust PSU, then overclock the 1070 Ti to 1080 performance territory and Bob's your uncle! (I have NO idea what that phrase means, but love it).

Hmmm....how about getting the 1070 Ti 'cause it's not much below a 1080 in performance, use the savings from not getting a 1080 to get a really robust PSU, then overclock the 1070 Ti to 1080 performance territory and Bob's your uncle! (I have NO idea what that phrase means, but love it).

Yeah I think this is what I'll do.

Chrispy_ wrote:

I can confirm that an Antec 80+ bronze 350W PSU is insufficient to run a 95W CPU and 160W graphics card. Once you add in fans and drives, and consider the potential peak power draws rather than the average TDPs combined, you're probably looking at a 450W minimum but I'd step up to 550 or 600W+ just so that it's not running anwhere near its maximum output.

As a rule of thumb, add your CPU and GPU TDPs together and double it, so in your case that number is 550W. For the ML08 you might want to get a silverstone SFX PSU with the short cable kit.

With this in mind I think I'll get the Corsair 600W SFX unit just to be safe.